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tv   Morning Joe  MSNBC  October 31, 2017 3:00am-6:00am PDT

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there is no hesitation. one of the great memories of all time, there was no hesitation. >> i'm not sure that the president recalls specific details of the meeting. again, it was a brief meeting that took place quite some time ago. >> interesting t. president remembers his conversation with a war widow like it was yesterday. but things get a little more hazy when trying to recall his meeting with a former adviser who communicated with the russians about getting dirt on hillary clinton. >> but it was one of his top advisers. that's what i don't understand. he talked to the washington post, willie. we all remember that, because it was probably the first time a presidential candidate and editorial interview talked about his hand as much as donald trump talked about the size of his hands, but when they asked about his foreign policy advisers, boom, right at the top of the list. >> called him an excellent guy,
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talking about george papadakolas. you can look at the photographs with high meetings. >> do we have that photograph? i have to tell you, in criminology, mike barnical, you look at these things to see who is in power, man, the attorney general on one side, the president of the united states who is going to be the president, obviously, and right in the middle. boom. the man of the moment. >> there he is, right there. >> papadopoulos. >> the story of the day good morning, everyone, it's tuesday, october 31st. it's a scary day for a lot of people, happy halloween, with us, we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor, mike barnicle. >> are you skard in. >> i'm frightened to death. >> freaked out, boo! national security analyst and
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former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense jeremy bash and in walk, white house reporter for usa today heidi pryzbila. good morning to you all. >> i want to start with this, it's really interesting, we have been hearing from critics of the special counsel from robert mueller that they're leakers. they leak like this then you get the first indictments out and trump and everybody else, oh, this has nothing to do with the campaign and then bomb. then we get the other shoe drops and my gosh, you sit there going, wait, they arrested anyone? when and they've held et for this long. it shows bob mueller runs an extraordinarily tight ship. >> he does an manafort and gates have gotten target letters. since the news got out on friday, everybody in washington was wondering who it might be.
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manafort was on almost everybody's guest list. when the news hit 90 minutes later that george papadopoulos was charged and therefore pled guilty and committing of a crime to the feds. >> that shows that bob mueller had not only one scalp but he actually now had a major cooperating witness. >> we'll get to the manafort witness. perhaps the most surprising development yesterday was the third man charged. one who has admitted to crimes and is cooperating with the government's investigation. gorge papadopoulos admitted to lying in its investigation in the russian interference in the 2016 election. yesterday's revelation shows he was arrested more than three months ago on july 27th and pled guilty october 5th a. court filing says he told the fbi that he had communicated with an overseas professor whom he
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understood to have substantial ties to russian government officials, before he became a foreign policy adviser to the trump campaign and that papadopoulos had knowledge about the russians possessing quote dirt on then candidate hillary clinton in the form of thousands of e-mails ball before joining the campaign. but in truth, papadopoulos learned he would be an ad advisor to the campaign in early march of 2016 and met the professor later, due to his status with the campaign t. filing says the professor told him about the thousands of e-mails on or about april 2016 after he had been a foreign policy adviser to the campaign for over a month. to review the time line, that is a month after clinton campaign chairman john podesta's e-mails were hacked and nearly two months before the first dnc hack
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was made public and three months before president trump made this joke. >> russia, if you are listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> but i don't think it was a joke actually. >> yeah. it seemed like an ad mission. >> what's the impact? when you are looking at this and you look at everything that's happened, the hacking, the release of the e-mails through wikileaks, the meeting with the russian lawyer in don junior's office, donald trump lying, orchestrating the big lie about that meeting, where does this all fit in to the overarching narrative? >> well, it shows, joe, how aggressive russian intelligence was at not only engaging a propaganda during the campaign. there was a lot of information in the intelligence community's assessment in january of this
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year. now we are learning much up more about their agents, how they handled, spotted, assessed, recruited and hand himmed their agents. i think we need to do air quotes, he clearly was a russian intelligence operative, a cutout, someone recruited by the russian intelligence services to handle an asset deep inside the trump campaign? >> thigh found a mark, someone who sits in national security interests. he showed an interest in getting dirt from a russian entity about hillary clinton plain and simple. >> there are so many marks. we don't hear this with the chinese, with other countries. >> and you have a candidate all the time who just loves russia.
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>> the first two people i think he listed with washington post in that editorial board meeting, carter page and this guy, both of them were detected with russia. you look at the national security adviser, flynn is, gets paid. this is one after another after another. >> this is a huge case, obviously, there is a window that opens a little. i will give you insight the papadopoulos window is huge. how does the special prosecutor get to him? who tips them off? the fact that there is july to october that there is no word that the indictment has been handed down and that the plea is listed. >> that shows the special prosecutor is both aggressive,
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incredibly tightly you know held information and the papadopoulos information has one key word that should frighten everyone in the white house, that key word is guilty. >> heidi, your thoughts on this i should point out, so much criticism. you had donald trump on the show so much during the campaign. he came on our show, we questioned him repeatedly on russia and repeatedly on tape there is this president then candidate just refusing even in the most extreme cases of telling him, putin murders reporters and him refusion to say anything bad about russia. >> that now is able was available to the people when we were interviewing him, showing this difference in the way he would talk about some people versus others. putin always being in the good
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category, somebody we how old protect and russia being somebody he wouldn't touch. >> if you noticed yesterday there was a tweet storm that fell silent once the papadopoulos news came out. now we are getting hotter on the question of collusion. now you have a second campaign official to potentially clued with the russians. the russians were aggressive, they were shopping these e-mails, they had a receptive potential buyer here in these high level aides. in addition to what mike barnicle said words that should chill the trump campaign and officials and those court papers, it said next to papadopoulos' name, cooperator, he pled to a less serious charge, that is classic case of
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him cooperating. this railing about leaks, this is being held quite quiet. this is only the beginning of charges either for manafort and for additional people and we simply don't know where the top of the fishhead is. >> jeremy, several people giving examples in the past how that term, proactive witness actually his myth in past computer filings would wear a wire. >> since he was arrested coming off an irkt at dulles international airport outside walk, he has been under the control of the fbi and he's not only turned over all documents he has and they probably were
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already in his e-mails. he could have been wearing a wire and baiting other campaign officials and even potentially current white house officials into talking with him. within thing about this issue. >> the danger of that before we move on the danger of that is, you know, if he called others and said, hey, i'm in trouble and they're sitting there telling him, you know, to lie. or, hey, why don't you just say that, d.o.t. d.o.t., suddenly you are in the realm of obstruction of justice? >> getting their stories straight. who else were volunteers? don jr., eric, ivanka, jared, i don't think being a vol ter exonerates you, in fact, most of the top echelon are volunteers. >> the have accusations about facilitating meetings with russians and getting encouraging feedback. it said that in april the
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overseas professor introduced papadopoulos to the foreign affairs. the filing lists multiple communications in attempts to arrange a meeting between the campaign with the russian government and alleges that after several weeks of further communications regarding a potential off the record meeting with russian officials on or about august 15th, 2016, an unnamed official described as campaign supervisor told papadopoulos that, quote, i would encourage you an another foreign policy adviser to the campaign said encourage you to make the trip to russia, if it is feasible. interesting. >> you know what i'm struck by reading through this plea agreements the same thing i'm struck by with the donald jr. story is that when they are
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presented with an opportunity to get dirt from a foreign .er about the political opponent, they don't run from it. they're thrilled by it. done jr. says i love it. that was his quote when he got that e-mail. another campaign might say, i don't want to go anywhere near thisio exhibit to touch this i know the implication of having a foreign power meddling in this election. >> let's stop for one time and say every campaign that any of us have ever known about worked on reported for would have all said, get away from me, get behind me, satan. the fact that they went straight to it, willie, something that again in this bizarre political world we live in now, something that we, sometimes overlook and is so strange. >> papadopoulos says i got the stuff.
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we will not send donald trump, we encourage you to go. it would be up with thing if they quote volunteer said i'm excited by this, to go to a supervisor who encouraged it and didn't say, woe, cut ties, tells you a lost what was going on in the campaign. >> one other thing that again we need to do a spot check on halloween. is that right? scary out there on halloween, 2017, if we ned to go back to the first statements that donald trump and everybody around donald trump said about russia, which was, oh, russia? no, we had enough contacts in russia. think about what they were saying back you know, mike pence, oh, heavens sakes, gee wiz, golly bang, we just talked to the american people, dog gone it. you can go down the list, donald trump, no, we didn't talk to -- you look at what we found out in the past six, seven, eight month, how much they all have lied about their contacts with
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russians. >> look at what we found out through papadopoulos, through the public announcement since july, as willie indicated. this is not as if the campaign is approached by someone from icehappened. this is russia. russia. you know, not an allie. and the papadopoulos revelations go etc. to the definition of collusion. if you read the indictment and collusion is defined as a secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose. >> that revelation yesterday is the definition of collusion. so now have you the introduction of the reality of collusion into the white house. >> which is why, of course which is why heidi said the twitter feed went silent. >> sar have a sanders was asked about this, downplaying the
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position in the campaign. >> can you explain what george papadopoulos' role was. >> it was extremely limited, a volunteer position, again no activity was ever done in official capacity on behalf of the campaign in that regard. >> but as we showed you, he had exposure to top campaign official, including the current attorney general jeff sessions and president trump, himself. >> that's a big player, right at the table. >> at what is the trump hotel in washington. >> you know, though, mainly, though, maybe he was bringing that coke or coffee. >> no, he was at the table. >> meeting somebody, because i don't think donald trump ever mentioned this guy's name as having to do anything with the campaign, right, willie? >> well, joe, papadopoulos is one he named as a foreign adviser. >> really, what? >> boom. >> we hard you might be anouceing your foreign policy advisory team soon? >> few want, i could give you
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some of the names, carter page, ph.d. george papadopoulos, he's an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy. >> trick or treat. heidi. >> i just wanted to say something to the previous point about collusion, just reminding everyone of how amazing the time line is now based on the revelations from yesterday. we now know that the trump campaign knew about the existence of these e-mails for three months until they were dumped and when were they dumped? timing wise? they were dumped within hours of the ""access hollywood"" tape about donald trump. so just let that sink in a bit in terms of the potential for coordination there. but in terms of the white house distancing itself from papadopoulos make him into this campaign volunteer. we have the e-mail evidence here he was corresponding with high level, being encouraged by high
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level officials within the campaign, he was reporting to jeff sessions, who, by the way, later also lied about his own contacts with the russians. and i think it also puts that don junior ema ill in light ahead of his meeting with the russians where, he was told this information is part of the campaign to help your father and again there was no questions there, what campaign? >> yes, a part of what campaign and also, of course, you have roger stone on twitter i think back when he used to be on twitter, actually talking about podesta his day was coming, what did he say the barrel, whatever, in saying that right before they started leaking the podesta e-mails, heidi is right the time line that bob mueller and his team must have, very frightening. >> another thing, the don jr. meeting and this papadopoulos
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have in common. they lied about it and he was convict and remember don jr. changed how many times, three or four times, how many people were in the meeting, what it was about. it wasn't about adoption, it was dirt from hillary clinton want not only have they engaged with the russian government. they lied about it and asked about it. >> we find out after 12 lies, there were like two russian interpreters in this meeting. >> exactly. there were four people in the russian delegation a part of in addition to rob goldstone, the british music promoter, the five people sent basically be i the russians to go meet with the senior echelons of the campaign. heidi's point is exactly right, it shows when he got that e-mail, oh, this is an interesting meet, i have no idea what this is about. they knew exactly what it was about. >> they now know the special prosecutor has volumes of information to lead them right down the road. everything. >> they also know they have two
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choices. they can fight it the way paul manafort fought it and possible spend the rest of his life in jail or they can cooperate and get a lesser charge and probably be on probation for sex months. >> yeah. >> correct. >> that's a clarifying. >> yes, chilling, actually. >> it's a clarifying moment for people to make a choice on whether they want to spend a lot of time in jail or whether they want to tell the truth. >> and when they're speaking to the media from the podium, it just -- stop lying. still ahead on "morning joe," much more on the indictments in the mueller investigation. we'll talk to nbc news' richard engel who has been following the money. also, senator richard blumenthal on the judiciary committee weighing in as facebook and twitter pre pa irto testify on how russia used their platforms. >> did you see how many american people were hit by those
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facebook ads. think about facebook's response after the election, oh, c'mon, think about the white house' response on and off the record, oh, nothing. >> immature. >> 1 and like 126 million americans reached by these facebook ads and a small, small, small fraction of that 126 million helped donald trump get elected in key states plus, chuck grassley makes a great escape on capitol hill, some senators simply wouldn't talk about the manafort indictment, they're like knocking flacks over, casey hunt was asking up with of those little innocent kasie questions. they literally want to hide behind the flag. >> that really says a lot. first, here's bill kierans with a check on the spooky -- >> hold on a second -- hey,
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alex, if caskasie d.c. gets a lightning bolt, i think on halloween bill kierans should get the lightning bolt? >> that's true. >> i'm not sure it's proprietary. >> it's embargoed. >> i'm not good enough. >> everybody is special here. s so. >> it's the forecast. it's looking awful scary out there. >> you get a rock. >> we'go to tend. yesterday we had the huge wind storms, still a couple hundred,000 people without power in the northeast. it is a chilling morning. a lot of great weather today for the kids. we will watch rain in east texas. this is 6:00 p.m. this evening. houston and dallas, they get not a washout for trick or treating. we will have hit or miss showers. we actually have snow and rain showers coming off the great lakes, thankfully, it's not much
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colder, northern michigan has some snow out there and heavier rains south of buffalo. travel forecast for the halloween parades, st. louis, chicago, new york, boston, fantastic weather for the eastern seaboard the coldest halloween you've had in 11 years, 36 degrees for your high. a lot of layers for the kids, as far as the map that joe was waiting for, i mean, he was anticipating this and looking forward to this, this morning the spooky city's forecast, franken stein, missouri, 41, witch lake at 27 and scary west virginia at 48 and of course salem, mass today, a beautiful view, clear skies and 50 with a nice view. so new york city included. a lot of great weather up and down the eastern seaboard on this halloween, you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. as you can clearly see, the updates you made to your plan strengthened your retirement score. so, that goal you've been saving for, you can do it.
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is any senator willing to
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take a question on manafort? senator cruz? >> we'll have plenty of time. >> we'll have plenty of time on this. since there are no questions on this topic, we'll ends the press conference. >> we were talking about earlier in between. >> i just can't, why can't they just say -- >> i don't know why they can't. it's interesting. this is daily news, there's some art right there. smashing trumpkips. >> happy halloween. shortly before 10:30 t. president revealed. his own thoughts on the indictments, in two tweets. quote, sorry, but, this is years ago, before paul manafort was a part of the trump campaign, but why aren't cooked hillary and the democrats the focus? >> i'm sorry. >> oh my gosh. >> also, there is no collusion.
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>> who accidentally called hillary clinton the president? somebody? >> cory lewandowski? the clinton administration. >> sean hannity. >> we now have the clinton administration and president clinton. >> hannity. >> no, but, why can't they just answer -- anyhow, white house secretary sarah huckaby sanders also insisted the president felt vindicated by yesterday's developments. . >> today's announcement has nothing to do with the president. it has nothing to do with the president's campaign or campaign activity. the real collusion scandal as we've said several times before has everything to do with the clinton campaign, fusion, gps and russia. we have been saying since day one there is no evidence of trump-russia collusion. >> he promised to hire only the best people. is this an example of the best people to hire? >> look athen gen, these were activities that took scope
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outside of the campaign, i can't comment on anything. >> are these the best people to hire? >> the president hired paul manafort to handle the delicate process, which he did, he was dismissed not too lodge after that. >> wow. >> how uncomfortable. >> so reporting in the washington post describes the president yesterday morning. and people close to the president telling the paper he was late getting down stairs to the oval office monday. sources say there weren't charges against gates and manafort in the company and the mood in the corridors of the white house is one of weariness and fear of the unknown, two officials said when the president had lunch with attorney general jeff sessions yesterday the two did not discuss the indictment, a member of the president's team commented on whether the president should fire bob
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mueller. >> the answer to that is no the president is not interfering with the special counsel mueller's position, he's not firing the special count sell. he said that before. >> this president said last week i believe it was last week and i said several times before, there is no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to the special count sell. >> so -- there has been. >> couchy. >> well, there has been a disciplined approach since yesterday morning, very disciplined approach, almost as if the attorneys and gem kelly were winning the day with donald trump and he was listening to them on showing discipline and responding. once these charges came down and were really quite significant. >> they had no response the president had no response. i actually think he's a lot more worried about the manafort and gates indictments for two
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reasons, it's pressure on them. they can testify against others in the campaign. second it shows bob mueller is not afraid to look at financial transactions that are not per se about the campaign but are about russian influence when you think of russian influence, financial transactions, you think of building trump tower in moscow, you think of all the efforts to get capital in the 2000s to fund their real estate deals. you think of all the things that president trump said is a red line. >> another problem, heidi, is the fact that sarah huckaby sanders is talking about volunteers and everybody is talking about volunteers, but i suspect if you follow the time line and if you look at what's happened, the people that are now and bob mueller and the investigators line of sight are not just volunteers to the campaign, but family members, whether they are don jr. or whether they are jared, it was
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really jared was in the middle of everything in the campaign, so, obviously, all roads lead to jared, all roads or some roads lead to don jr. so the family questions, certainly, if they're down in the white house, gets far more complicated now. >> regardless of what you call them, they owe owe this goes mainly to papadopoulos are now cooperating with mueller. they're in a position to potentially tell him exactly what donald trump, himself, personally knew for instance about these e-mails. papadopoulos came back from the meeting with the professor. i thought it was notable sarah huckaby sanders when asked about that meeting that he had with the president, she said the president didn't recall. >> right. so these people and now we're learning that paul manafort was
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essentially a paid foreign agent during the time when he was the top leiutenant on the trump campaign, just weeks before the election, he was still trading messages with consulting firms working for pro-russian interests, so manafort, same story, he's going to be in a position, if they can get to him cooperate to say what exactly trump, himself, also knew. >> so, mike, when you talk about don jr., you talk about the family, you talk about jared, the problem for them legally is the fact that this was such a closely-held campaign. sow had, for instance, donald trump telling jared, you know, take care of our data. donald trump telling jared, take care of our own line, fund raising, donald trump, basically, after some time, he really became the defacto not just campaign manager, but
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basically the guy that was helping run everything. so if there are problems in parts of these campaigns, then he's going to be involved one way or the other and this is where that closely-held company and the fact that donald trump did not have a company leak anybody else and he kept it so tight in his family that reality now puts the family members in legal jeopardy. >> well the problem for them is the reality you just outlined. the reality yesterday in the papadopulos revelations are the fact that the special prosecutor is inside that white house circle. they are inside that circle. you also mentioned the word discipline. this weekend the president of the united states embarks on a critical 12-day trip to asia. north korea, japan, the pacific rim, all of that, will be dealt with this weekend. he is going to asia as a time when he has got to have this on
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his mind, that there have been indictments of manafort and manafort's aide that papadopoulos has pled guilty, that's getting him into the white house. he's bought the to know the special prosecutor has volumes of material, he has got to know one other correct, al thing. >> that is there was no mention yesterday of general flynn. is general flynn now a koorping witness? we don't know. >> i want to button up what we started to talk about, that's this question, jeremy of whether or not the president can fire bob mueller. the white house says they're not thinking of this at this time. there seems on the grey area, he k. it would require a series of extraordinary steps to do it. he could fire bob mueller. >> he has to lean on orod rosen stein and if he would refuse, he would have to fire him and find someone else, i think the pard isn't a path of less resistance, that's why you sow downing,
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manafort's counsel, he said, donald trump was right. he immediately said. >> he planned the part. >> he had an audience of one. >> yeah, wow. coming up, social media executives are preparing to testify on capitol hill. it comes as we learned new details about the extent russia tried to meddle in the 2016 election, including reaching millions of americans on facebook. "morning joe" will be right back.
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perfect. we are learning how aggressive russia was in influencing the 2016 election. facebook says an estimated 126 million people received russian-backed content. on its website during the 2016 election. that's roughly one-third. testimony by facebook's hearing. they say some 29 million americans directly receive material from 80,000 posts by
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120 fake russian-backed pages. alarming new data from twitter was revealed as well, two sources told nbc news the company found almost 37,000 automated accounts linked to russia that generated election-related material that resulted in nearly one.5 million tweets that could have appeared in the timelines of some 280 million users. >> all right. so, mike, you got possibly 28 million. almost 300 million impressions on twitter from russian accounts. you have facebook posts seen by 126 million americans, all to influence a campaign won by the narrowest of mar jens, 80,000 votes in three states, a number that fit in a football stadium were the size of trump's
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victory .06% of 126 million. you had 288 million and maybe that .01 or 2%. >> we don't know whether any of this resulted in people voting for donald trump over hillary clinton and in what markets they may have voted or fought voted for or against someone. what we do know is the amazing reach and influence of people who get their news from facebook or twitter, largely facebook to reach the depth of that impact. >> any signal or sign of outrage about the fact that russia did what it did? you can separate out and say they tried to alter results of the election and i had in you can to do with that him those can be two thoughts that you have in your head, i didn't
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collude, donald trump as we all know, can't put himself out and admit that perhaps his election was in some way illegitimate because it was influenced by the russian, everybody should be outraged by all these stories we're seeing. >> let's bring in eugene robinson, not good in math, you add 188 million impressions on twitter, you got 126 million impressions on facebook, that adds up to a lot of people. i mean, it's over 400 million impressions, more impressions than there are people in the united states of america. so kind of hard for the trump campaign or anybody, facebook, twitter, anybody, to not say that had an impact in the election in some way. >> right. and it did. it obviously did. we can't quantify that. you know, maybe some professor somewhere can come up with a
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fo formula, you say we'll never know for sure that that tipped the ewill exto donald trump him clearly to say it had no impact is ridiculous him as far as there being 37,000 attack or russian fake twitter accounts. i could have told you that. they were in my notices. they're all screaming at me. >> yesterday was an extraordinary indictment. you guys have covered most of it. one thing i think ought to scare the bejesus out of the white house is papadopoulos was arrested if july and nobody knew, nobody knew anything. it was not a leevenlth there was not a hint and the idea, it's not just the idea that between july and october he was wearing a wire. it's the question of who else has mueller arrested? who else has mueller turned? who else might be wearing a
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we're? that's something everybody connected with the campaign and the white house has to worry about now. it was an incredible day. >> it's real. >> heidi, as we're talking about facebook and twitter, we don't know if the russians directly influenced the election or not, with 400 million impressions on twitter and facebook. we certainly know they had the intent to do that, for the white house to not be concerned or, press concerns that the russians intended to distort and twist and influence american democracy at its highest levels is now patently clear by the testimony yesterday and yet we heard the white house once express concern about this? >> no, but we as journalists need to stop right now saying this did not have an effect. because what we saw in this election very clearly was that
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turnout on a democratic side was depressed and that was the strategic aim of the russians. they weren't trying to flip votes from hillary clinton to donald trump. they knew they couldn't do that but if you look at the precision targeting that took place, for example, targeting florida, african-american voters on facebook with antihillary messages on criminal justice reform. boy, that was really targeted to try and depres those votes. so we need to stop right now from saying that secondly, i guess we shouldn't be so surprise thad the white house isn't expressing outrage given if tandem with this effort, donald trump, himself, was weaponizing the russian gift of wikileaks. so, you know, we have counted up the times the president mentioned wikileaks and pushed wikileaks on the stump and then to turn and and say that that had no effect is just not
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credible. >> and gene, again, you go down the time line. the campaign knew wikileaks was coming. they knew podesta e-mails were coming. that's what we learned yesterday, months before they were actually dropped and you had people connected to donald trump's campaign, that had been politicaled a fors for years, bragging before it came out that podesta was about to get hammered. >> that's more than suggested. it's more of a coincidence, it begins to fill in a picture of collusion, that's what he was best to do. the question is, who were these other company official was knew about this? participated in this, there is a lot of questions to answer here. but the picture that's starting
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to fill in looks very, very bad for the trump campaign and the white house. >> thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," former trump campaign manager paul manafort was first to fall yesterday when news of an indictment broke. but one of our next guests says it's rick gates, a manafort social who is the real threat to president trump. "morning joe" will be right back. dad: molly, can you please take out the trash? (sigh) ( ♪ )
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thank you. accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? i'm tom steyer, and like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet today people in congress and his own administration know
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gazprom. all right. of course it took was 53 minutes but now the most important news of the day. tonight one of the best world series in some time continues. >> oh, i have never seen two games in one world series like this two games we've seen in this world series. the other night was an incredible event. tonight, game six, verlander and the astros. i don't think it will end tonight. >> you don't? >> i don't.
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>> ver land is great, but the lodgers are going back home, and again, this is one of the best teams all year. it would be pretty shocking if houston could claw back from being two down against the yankees and come back and win in six. boy, that would be crazy. >> it would. and they did it two nights ago against clayton kershaw. dodgers up 4-0. they go home, up 3-2. and then it turns into that home run derby over five and a half hours. >> and outrated the nfl. >> yeah. on sunday night. >> amazing. and mika, of course, now that know your value is over, you're going to be watching baseball games six and seven. >> oh, it's not over. we launched a website yesterday, but yesterday was incredible. it's really hard to put into words everything that happened. i mean, there were some breakout stars on the stage.
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and some major megastars on the stage, but mostly really important conversations about personal branding, about success, about interoffice politics. and these women were the contestants in the know your value bonus competition. willie and joe were judges. a lot of new york stars and local media here. but these women pitched on stage, and they learned how to communicate effectively in realtime, and the audience was so -- there's our winner. >> there's tiffany. >> tiffany from stanford, connecticut. it was a beautiful day. and we got so much done. >> and boy, willie, you were a judge. i saw while you were judging, tiffany was up there. i was looking at you, and looking at extraordinary stories she was telling. mika had tears in her eyes. >> i think we all did. one minute on the clock to make
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their pitch to mika and the judges, and all three were so impressive. but tiffany especially. >> it's hard to put the day in a few pictures. on friday, we're having a great piece that will take you through the entire event and what's coming up in the future. >> and mika, how about your body language expert? >> oh, my gosh. jeanine driver. i love her. she's a huge "morning joe." she came to the event because she's a "morning joe" fan, and literally left everything on the stage. everybody was laughing hysterically and then crying really hard. >> and she was -- >> i've never seen anything like it. >> as she was coming off stage, everybody was crying. i was like, okay, she's pretty good at this. how does she get emotion like that every time and turn it off? she had tears rolling down her face. >> it was incredible. >> it was. >> anyhow, thank you to everybody. my team, awesome. coming up, is this just the start of the indictments against those connected to the trump
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campaign? we'll get insight from a former federal prosecuter. plus richard blumenthal tweeted last night, quote, we now know trump's campaign was run by an accused russian foreign agent charged with conspireing against the u.s. and laundering payments from moscow. >> it's sort of lasered out there. >> we'll ask a member of the judiciary committee what it means for the investigation underway on the hill when he joins us next hour. "morning joe" is coming right wac. g beverages with less sugar or no sugar at all, smaller portion sizes, clear calorie labels, and signs reminding everyone to think balance before choosing their beverages. we know you care about reducing the sugar in your family's diet, and we're working to support your efforts. more beverage choices. smaller portions. less sugar. balanceus.org.
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we heard you might be announcing your foreign policy advisory team soon. >> if you want, i could give you some of the news. >> the current page, ph pd. george papadopoulos. he's an energy oil energy consultant. excellent guy. >> can you explain george papadopoulos's role? >> it was limited. it was a volunteer position. nothing was done in an official capacity. >> some things have changed since march. >> yeah. >> apparently. >> "the washington post" editorial board meeting which i have to say if you've never listened to it, are heard comedians redo it, it's one of the most extraordinary where when you talk to the washington post, he talked to his hands for
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about 15 minutes, talking about people coming up saying my goodness, you have wonderful hands. >> the white house now says george papadopoulos, just a volunteer. >> he really did that, but between talking about his hands, he actually listed carter page and this guy as his two foreign policy experts. >> he said that he was just a volunteer, but he had a really good seat at the table. look at this. i mean, my god. i want to be a volunteer at the white house. >> really. that's like an amateur winning the masters. >> that's zero to 100 miles per hour. >> he's between jeff sessions, future attorney general, and there's donald trump. >> three seats down with the president. >> and it is important, again, tongue not inserted in cheek. it is important that at the time, and the prosecuters are going to go back to the time when all this was going on. at the time this was going on, he was seated at the table with donald trump, and donald trump
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listened to him as one of his top two foreign policy advisers. did "the washington post"? >> on this spooky halloween day, really, these are the days that some people get really scared. with us we have mike barnicle, former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, jeremy bash. washington bureau chief for the associated press, julie pace, and now an msnbc contributor, carol lenning. >> julie, we all figured out, i heard the conversation, you're wired. >> oh, boy. wearing a wire. >> you've sort of been in this neighborhood. tell us about it. >> i've been roaming around these folks for a while. george papadopoulos showed up on this list of foreign policy adviser, and there's a lot of revisionist history. why he read it off at "the washington post" meeting, the list. this was a point in the campaign
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where he was under a lot of pressure to say he had advisers on policy. the fact that he read this off, at the time it was looked at as something that was just maybe a list that was handed to him, but i've talked to george. other people have. in part because the other person who was on that list who has gotten so much attention is cart carter page and a lot of folks said while carter was not in the room with the president while he was not around much, that george was around at least if not around the president all the time, there was a policy shop that was being operated out of the campaign head quarters in virginia and that he was there and involved in discussions. >> fair to say in your experienced reporting is george papadopoulos was not just a volunteer, not somebody that didn't have influence? >> i wouldn't call him a major player, but you have to remember there was the campaign head quarters where you had paul manafort and cory lun douse si and donald trump in the family, and you had a policy shop out of virginia that was trying to create policy for this campaign.
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>> was he putting bumper stickers on or doing russia policy? >> we never got clarity on what he or the others produced, but they were there operating. >> how does he get to the campaign? who gets him into the campaign? >> this is another mystery that no one wants to take ownership for. there are a couple of other officials who factor into the decision making about who was on the list. one is sam cloves. another isbe barry bennett. >> carol, you've spent a lot of time reporting on paul manafort. what can you tell us? >> well, it's pretty amazing to think that the chairman of a campaign somehow is accused now of laundering 12 to 13 to $18 million in money he didn't report, in alleged tax evasion,
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creating 17 different accounts in different places to bank money that he didn't share with the justice department or with the irs. it's a striking document, this unsealed indictment. >> all right. let's bring in a law professor at george washington university, a and also joyce vance. >> joyce, looking at everything that came down yesterday from bob mueller's office, what's your impression? >> my impression is mueller has launched the opening salvo in what will be a long and successful war. it's an impressive indictment, this charging document against manafort and gates. it's rich in detail. they've obviously followed the money and put that paper trail into the indictment. many of these charges are almost self-proving in the sense that it's the failure to file which cannot be contested that leads
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to criminal liability. and then the one, two punch following the manafort and gates indictment with this tremendous news that there's a guilty plea and a proactive corporator in george papadopoulos sends a strong message that mueller didn't playing around. this investigation will reach the white house lawn and perhaps the oval office. it was a tremendous day for bob mueller. >> was there any foreshadowing in what you read yesterday that suggests where bob mueller is going yesterday or where his ultimate destination is? >> i think at dinner tables last night and perhaps in lawyer's offices this morning, anyone who had involvement in this entire scheme, whether they were high or low in knowledge is talking about whether they now need to go ahead and volunteer what they know to prosecuters. do they need to be first in and cut some sort of a deal to save themselves before others do
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that? mueller's next steps, i think will depend on what he hears and frankly, it's unlikely that papadopoulos was the only cooperator. i think there may be many other folks who have been wearing wires and making phone calls the last few months. >> joyce, if paul manafort went to trial, if he were found guilty on charges of money laundering, tax evasion from a foreign government, the ukraine, or wherever, what would be the sentencing recommendation? >> so federal sentencing is a little complicated. you see a number in the statute. we're hearing 20 years on the money laundering charges. actually, it's not quite that high. there's a guideline calculation that's prepared for a federal judge at sentencing. it's based on the defendant's prior criminal history and his conduct in the case he's being charged in. and financial crimes, that sentence is very strongly driven
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by the dollar amount involved. here the dollar amounts are astronomical. manafort is probably looking at something in a range of 152 months and prosecuters could ask the judge to depart upwards to enhance the sentence and make it longer because his conduct was so incredibly harmful to the interests of the country. >> jonathan, we focussed on paul manafort because he's such a well known figure. and we watched him throughout the campaign. but there's another name on the indictment, gates. >> the problem, many people have been talking about whether manafort himself could flip. that's unlikely, because he's the matinee defendant. that's a bad position to be in. he is the prize right now. so to get this type of plea, you've got to bring
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deliverables. you have to show you can deliver somebody higher. if you're a matinee dfrt, it has to be another matinee target. it's not clear he has that type of information. gates is different. he's not the lowest hanging fruit, but he's in a position that if he can supply deliverables against manafort or people above manafort, he honestly could avoid jail time or have very little. he's the one to watch. so is general flynn. the fact that we have not heard anything about general flynn is very surprising. those fair accounts in the complaint. there's only about seven prosecutions. this is a weird mix, very serious allegations, and you have these fair accounts. that sends a message to people like flynn, potentially tony podesta and others that we just nailed a guy for this.
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you could white out manafort's name and put a couple of names in those graphs and they would read just fine. >> jeremy, you look at gates. he's a guy that not only was there during the campaign, but even after manafort left, he was still there. worked toward the end of the campaign. worked on the inaugural committee. worked as a liaison, i believe to the rnc. and he was about to start helping trump's outside superpac. so this guy has been there for a long, long time. has a lot to tell. >> yeah. he has every incentive to cooperate right now. he has information not just about the effort by russian-backed ukrainian entities to influence washington. the money laundering, the tax evasion, but he potentially has information about the campaign. he also has information about the trump administration. >> so julie, we're coming up almost on 24 hours since we've heard from the president of the united states. it's a rare thing these days. how concern second down the white house as you report yesterday, and what are they
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most worried about? >> they're concerned. you're seeing a lot of public brushing off of what happened yesterday, but certainly there's a high level of concern not only because of what we saw with these three people, but because we're in a phase of the mueller investigation where you have former white house officials and current white house officials who are going before mueller and the message that mueller sent is that he's taking things like lying to him and to his prosecuters as really serious offense. it sends -- i think it could have a chilling effect on people who are currently in this white house. >> do you have any sense within the white house staff how many have retained lawyers? >> several have, for sure. certainly the people who have left j sean spicer, reince priebus. we know hope hicks, a close confidant of the president has. jared kushner has retained counsel. it's pretty widespread within the west wing right now. >> and then the question is who was wired and who might turn themselves in right now and get a deal to save themselves?
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this is like -- at this point, every man for himself, or woman. "the washington post" bob costa, there was a piece describing the president yesterday and his behavior. separated from most of his west wing staff who fretted over why he was late to the oval office, trump clicked on the television and spent the morning playing fuming media critic, legal analyst, and crisis communication strategist according to several teem close to him. the president digested the news of the first indictments of bob mueller's probe with exasperation and disgust, the people said. he called his lawyers repeatedly. he listened intently to cable news commentary and with rising irritation, he watched live footage of his one time campaign adviser and confidant, paul manafort turning himself into the fbi. initially he felt indicated though frustrate he was being
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linked. he cheered that the charges with focussed primarily on activities that began before his campaign. trump tweeted at 10:28 a.m. there is no collusion. >> and of course, soon after that jonathan turly, the tweets went silent and for a good listen because of the bomb shell that mueller released. and you wonder whether he timed it in such a way to have the president or the president's allies do just that. so it's interesting. and we've talked about it for some time. legal analysts have talked about it for some time. you've talked about it for some time. you have a president who is now at the center of an administration that's under investigation. very serious investigation. and he's used to being able to bully reporters and bully other
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people into bending stories or sending his spokes people out to outright lie. this is going -- he is going to be -- is he not -- a very difficult client, for his lawyers to handle, because bob mueller does not play by the same rules as cable news commentators play by or bloggers play by. >> well, he's already been a difficult client. there's no question about that. in the immigration cases he was the primary witness against himself, and in his latest round they continue to cite his statements. this is a much more precarious than the immigration case, obviously. but what we have to look for as we lay this out is this sort of interstitial relationship in terms of time line between the meetings with trump officials and the actual hacking of the
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systems. clearly some of the hacking had occurred when they reached out to this staffer or volunteer, but some of it had not. now, to cross that bridge into the criminal code, the most obvious way to do it is if there was some discussion before a hack. if there was knowledge that a hack would occur, then you would be in serious criminal area. i mean, the white house is correct. the manafort complaint notably was removed in terms of its center of gravity from the campaign. i expected to be more of a narrative in those charging papers that might indicate a stronger nexus to the campaign. that wasn't there. >> jonathan, we had heard that they put some of these charges out because of a pending statute of limitations. there's a timing issue. they obviously can go back and add any time they want. >> they can, and prosecuters will often do a super ceding indictment. there no reason for manafort or
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gates to believe that these are the counts they'll face at trial. they could have one or even more than one supou superseding indictments. >> some more clarity. there's been so much information going back an forth. many people pointed out collusion is not a crime on its own. what would it take to show evidence of a crime in terms of outreach from the trump campaign to russia as sort of a quid pro quo there? >> there are a lot of options here. we've talked a lot about federal election law. and this concept dthat you cannt seek a contribution or from a foreign national or government in connection with an american election. clearly that conduct would be out of bounds. there's a lot of indication that there will be evidence of that nature in this case. but there's also a whole range
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of crime that we haven't really begun to discuss yet. there is, for instance, wire fraud if there were schemes to defraud american voters and money was moved. there are conspiracies. we've seen a conspiracy to defraud the united states charged one way. it could be charged a different direction. so we're all in a sense, i think, amateur devotees of the time line. we spend some of our time looking at the time line of events stacked up, but mueller has people who are full-time focussed on the time line and putting those conduct together, and the charges they bring will be fact driven whether it's false statements, obstruction or substantive content crimes that are charged based on election violations or other financial misdealing. >> all right. thank you guys both so much. really appreciate it.
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carol, tell us podesta who stepped down yesterday. how does he play into this investigation? >> it's interesting in that part of the indictment. there's a lot of reference to company a and company b. we now know those companies match the descriptions company a as mercury, public affairs. and also company b, the podesta group. tony podesta announced to his colleagues yesterday that he was stepping down after company b, the podesta group, the group that he and his brother, john, formed in 19 8 was described as seeming to know a little bit more about what manafort and gates were doing in concealing the identity of a foreign power, that they were representing and lobbying and seeming to know a lot about how involved paul manafort and rick gates were in there. remember that one of the major charges and counts against
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manafort and gates is that they defrauded the u.s. government by not revealing and by working to conceal their role representing a powerful political regime. and this is, by the way, a pro russia ukraine power. >> right. >> so not disclosing that is a big deal. the fact that it's connected to russia is a big deal. the fact that it was a source of a lot of funds that paul manafort is alleged not to have disclosed is also interesting. but back to tony, quickly, what tony's firm is alleged to have done is to have known that paul manafort and rick gates were weekly having consultations with his firm about how to direct the lobbying for this ukraine organization, and the indication is that a principal at the podesta group warned manafort and gates in a private e-mail that former employees of the podesta group and also our own
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internal e-mail records will show that some of your coaching talking points, your cover story about not being involved will be proven false. >> all right. "the washington post" carol lenning. thank you very much. and jeremy bash, thank you as well for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe." hardball's chris matthews grabs a seat at the table. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. it lets you know where your data lives, down to the very server. it keeps your insights from prying eyes, so they're used by no one else but you. it. is. the cloud. the ibm cloud. the cloud that's designed for your data. ai ready. secure to the core. the ibm cloud is the cloud for business. yours. you can do it.
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are you the, quote, high ranking campaign official who received three or four e-mails from george papadopoulos during this april, may, june, time period during the campaign? >> it's a great question. and i don't know the answer to it because as you know, as the campaign manager to the trump campaign, i was receiving thousands of e-mails a day. >> at any time did george
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papadopoulos tell you verbally or in an e-mail that russian officials told them they had dirt on hillary clinton, specifically thousands of her e-mails. do you ever remember receiving that message from george pop lop dou -- papadopoulos? >> i don't remember that. he was such a low level volunteer, i don't remember much interaction with him. >> i wonder if paul manafort is still glad the kids and some others kicked corey lewandowski out so manafort could run the campaign? >> corey lewandowski moments ago on the "today" show. joining us now, chris matthews, host of hardball. his new book, "bobby kennedy, a raging spirit" is out today. >> obviously we have to start with the big news of the day. yesterday, what's your take away from yesterday?
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>> i think the times, which has been unbelievable in reporting this, the side bar piece by peter baker was unbelievable. it blew apart the whole trump defense. trump's line of defense was there was no russian effort to influence our election. that wall fell a long time ago. 17 u.s. agencies said they did. and now saying our campaign had nothing to do with colluding with them or nothing to do with flirtation, now his son-in-law a long time ago, now papadopoulos. no wonder he was going nuts yesterday. and today he will again. this amazing picture. this is the picture, we're told, drive trump crazy, the artwork. the white house at dawn. the white house in the dark. these three guys all -- like water gate. the intrigue and the connection to all of it. and he's the boss. he may not have spent more than two hours at the most with papadopoulos, but top of that papadopoulos was representing
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him. and it's a big enterprise, and this guy, muler is going after the enterprise. he's going after the institution of this presidency and the campaign. all that together. look out. >> little things that sort of seem different now as you watch this unfold. i've been hearing from insiders who have been reading about this. trump has been trying to get jarod and ivanka to move back to new york. he's all about the family, and he wants them out. he wants them out of the fray. and you wonder if he wants them out of anybody wearing a wire. >> well, they got him on the chart already. >> we've spoken to several people over the weekend who all told us donald trump made it clear to his daughter and son-in-law, it's time for them to go back to new york. this experiment failed. >> he's been saying it for a long time. >> have you been hearing the same thing at the white house? >> he's said it in meetings in front of advisers. people have been hearing it for some time. part of the point to mika's
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point. when you talk to people in the clinton investigation when the investigations were going on, part of the problem is that people inside the west wing felt like they wouldn't trust each other because they didn't know what each person was saying, when they were being called before prosecuters. it's the same thing now. active white house officials are saying what they knew during the campaign, the transition, and currently in the white house. and people don't know who to trust. >> wow. >> and this is -- apparently the pace, the intensity of him telling them it's time to leave has picked up. >> the ship's taking on water, and he's putting them on lifeboats. >> ten months from his presidency. >> ten months into his presidency, yeah. >> so chris, we can talk about this for the next three hours, but i really want to talk about this book, because obviously this guy's always been a hero of mine. >> that's so powerful that you would -- i can understand it. it's not about ideology.
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it's something else. >> he actually -- what i love about this guy is, and i've always loved about him is, he gave the same speeches to college students that he gave elsewhere, and also another thing. and you pointed this picture out. can we see this picture on the back? for anybody that knows about bobby kennedy's death, this is the train ride. the long train ride, and on the train ride, you had on one side of the train tracks white working class americans that would come out and salute bobby kennedy. >> salute. >> salute. patriotic unity. >> and on the other side of the train tracks you had poor black people that would come out that lived on the other side of the tracks saluting bobby kennedy. and i think one of the most powerful and tragic images in american political history is the image of that train moving past and both sides turning their backs and walking back into their homes, and there has
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not been another politician since june of 1968 that could bring together those two people back to the tracks to salute the same person. >> that's why i wrote the book. and i think the democrats are guilty of discarding white working class people, the whole archie bunker thing. let's make fun of working class ethnic people. the carole king concerts. the whole elite thing. we're better. we have rich donors. let's talk about their social issues. emphasizing the social issues all the time to the detriment of the coalition, and i think that bobby, michael knows this, but string collecting, we've had similar lives. when you're a capital policeman, you learn a lot. were you one of the guys who said hello to the cops? you probably were. >> you talk to members of congress who were good people, and then you see how rude they
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act to staff members and elevator operators, and at that moment you decide they're not good people. >> bobby would go by the cop stand. we weren't exactly trained street cops. not exactly. we around out of the case, a murder case. but he would go by, and a friend of mine, a cop back then. he said he would come up to the cops and stop and say what are you reading? he'd say what's that? playboy? he engaged. i think ethel told me, he was born a democrat. i mean lower case, connect with people. and i think that's missing today. and i think trump -- >> but there were contrasts, and by the way, alex, we're going to go an extra segment here. i apologize to whoever -- >> i love your power. i love it. >> the remarkable thing with bobby, though, is he was a democrat with a lower d, but he also is a hardened conservative at birth. he had -- he always had that
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picture of hoover. he loved hoover. he was a tough, tough son of a bitch. >> you phrased it right. >> and yet, the most remarkable thing about him, talk about the evolution from november 22nd, 1963, through june the end -- >> a couple changes. people do go through changes. they don't change completely but in different ways. when he was a kid, he was sensitive. a friend of the family said he's so generous, the old man who is not a nice guy, joe kennedy said, i don't know where he got that from, generosity. he played on varsity football at harvard. a tough guy. got his brother elected to senate. against mccarthy. wrote a resolution against mccarthy. something changed from the guy that was going after january connor and taunting him in the hearings. this is a killer.
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this is al capone's successor. people were put on meat hooks. that's the guy he would taunt in hearings and say i thought only little girls giggled, and then he became the guy who looked out for american indians, looked out for poor appalachian whites. and a family member explained this to me off the record. he said you know what? sometime in your life you decide you spend enough time chasing bad guys, and you realize they create their own hell on earth, so why not focus on the victims. so he began to focus on the people in trouble. >> the clips that we just showed of the train ride, i was on that train. that train came out of the tunnel from penn station up over the water as you head toward new jersey. own on the right hand side, you saw a fire boat with the white firefighters on the fire boat holding the flag, saluting the train. the next thing you saw was what you're looking at now, hoards,
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lee legions of people, black, white, didn't matter. robert kennedy in the late fall of his life, when he was on the senate nutrition committee, took a tour of the south and of west virginia about hunger in america, and you can see the shots of him posed with people poor. very, very poor. lacking nutrition. lacking food. they were of all colors. he was nonideological in a sense. in the sense of his morality. and he may be the last public person who was in a national stage who gave you that sense of morality in him. every time he spoke. >> i think one point when we're in the middle of the cuban missile crisis, the scariest thing we've been through, and bobby's first instinct was bomb the hell out of them. let's go get those s.o.b.s, and then he thought we're just going to kill a lot of cubans, kill thousands of people, kill russians and we're not going to be the japanese here.
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i'm not going to be the japanese. i'm not going to have a sneak attack, and he went and gave that speech to the tough hawks and they said -- they were already worried about berlin and what the russians would do if we moved on cuba. it was jack that sent them in to do that. i think that moral compass is gone today. whenever trump says something about evil, i go what do you know about good and evil? you didn't think like that. and i think the other thing is, and i go back to this white people, every time -- we all grew up with race being an issue, north, south. i grew up in philly. it was the political issue, and every time you have a discussion of what i call the san an dree yas fault, you decide whether to unite or divide. the easiest thing is divide. get on one side, blow your trumpet, and it works politically, let's face it. and bobby said every time, when he was trying to deseg grate
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places, he always tried to work it through the governor, the soft way, avoid violence, and i think he wanted to bring peace between whites and blacks and today politicians choose sides and cause more trouble. >> hold that thought. much more with chris matthews after a quick break. you owned your car for four years. you named it brad. you loved brad. and then you totaled him. you two had been through everything together. two boyfriends, three jobs... you're like nothing can replace brad. then liberty mutual calls... and you break into your happy dance. if you sign up for better car replacement™, we'll pay for a car that's a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.
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we're back speaking with chris matthews out today with a new book "bobby kennedy, a raging spirit". what can the modern democratic party learn from bobby kennedy 50 years after his death. having lost more than 1,000 seats under barack obama. >> the democratic party in our country began with irish italian, working class people. it started with black people too. they were all together with economic interest. unions, working wages. good job. democrats focussed on social issues. they divided the coalition. it just happened. there's nothing wrong with it, but it happened. they have to get past the social issues and back to economic issues that unite. >> can i talk about that? i told this story once or twice before. back in my first time, they
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spent a couple hundred thousand dollars trying to beat people. union this, union that. >> it works. >> and i was like yeah, and i had to get my phone fixed. a guy comes in, fixes my phone and starts to leave. he turns around and goes do you mind if i talk to you for a second. i said yes, sir. he said we all vote for you. we all vote for you. shut up about the unions. he goes we all vote for you. the guys, you know, tell us to vote against you. we don't. be quiet. and i sat there, and i thought, i probably should just shut up. but that goes to your point where you've got, again, union, union membership disconnected from democratic leaders. and it's been that way for 20 years. >> i think their vision on social issues and street issues have -- bobby was an enforcer of the law, and the biggest
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champion of minorities. put that together. not only was a tough prosecuter. he believed in law and order. when he saw the rioting after the king killing, he said this is bad stuff, burning buildings. liberals don't say that. they say you have to believe law and justice go hand and hand. you use law to go after the mobsters and use law to protect people in the streets and you got to build that case instead of -- it goes back to the vision in our country. as long as you take one side against the other, you're part of the problem. >> in terms of this topic and the problem with the democratic party today, talk to us about april, 1968, gary, indiana, robert kennedy. black mayor. dick hatcher. >> bobby is trying to hold the working class polish people, ethnic people in gary, indiana. what's he do? he gets in an open car. he has tony zal next to him, a
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champ. he's the local hero. the man of steel, they call him. he puts the white ethnic guy on one side, richard hatch on the other side, and they ride through town. he wanted to symbolize with both crowds. he said it over and over again, i'm with both sides. we're you nigunited. we have the same interests. he did well in the race. he tried to do it, and he to do killed. i think the guy really had a goal in mind. he wanted to be the great unifier. >> we sometimes look back on history with a gauzy lens, but this really does feel like a different era. i'm curious -- >> i was there. >> you've done the research for this book, did you some away optimistic or pessimistic about whether we can recapture this. >> bill clinton said if you have a good memory of the 60s, you're probably a from pro gregressive.
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i think it's different. remembering both kennedys being killed and this guy is the spirit that survives. they said the kennedy i liked most, the one i connected with, the spirit of that we can do it together, make it work, this picture with the black kids and the white working people, that thing -- the guys i was in the peace corps with, they're guys i met who worked with bobby kennedy. and the other thing about this, and i'm going to leave with this because i was both a cop and a staffer on the hill. he treated staffers as equals. they all called him bob. they were equals socially. he wasn't an aristocrat. i think on a human level, i go back to the fact he said hello to the cops in the morning. so many of the elite snooty guys walk around, yes, i like everyone, but no one in particular. i'm just better than all these people, and bobby, you got to start with the person in front
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of you if you're going to be a liberal. that's why i liked tip. he liked the person who needed help. i think this is going to remind a lot of people during these dreary times that america is better than that, than what we have and can be again. >> the book is "bobby kennedy, a raging spirit". chris matthews, host of hardball. >> i treasure the fact that you folks watch it. >> i watch it every day. >> i talked to mika last night. >> i'm obsessed with it. >> i like your opening line. i love it. i like -- i clamor to see -- >> she's like what's first? >> i've had eastern promises. i keep coming out with a new permutation of russia. >> what was your favorite one? >> one you did, i forgot what it was, maybe it was like the access hollywood tapes where you were just like uh-oh, and then the open that's all you need. i was like that's so good.
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>> there's a five-year-old kid i heard about who watches my show because he thinks the show really is let's play hardball. that's what he likes to hear. >> it's really good. >> but everybody has to stop. wherever she is, at 7:00 to hear what you're going to say. >> did i ever tell you a story about your father? we're ready to go to war over afghanistan in a big fight. i came in with my tux on. we were all going to the press dinner. and i felt an equal. i go over. i'm just a speech writer. i go over to see him, ensaid can you approve this speech. you know. he reads it and says, we're calling him barbarians and you want me to approve this right now, barbarians? we'll talk in the morning. that was my big moment. >> he always makes us think. julie pace, thank you as well. chris matthews, thank you. >> chris, thank you. up next -- incredible book
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and timing -- nbc news was first to uncover the extent of paul manafort's money trail. richard engel helped bring the story to light, joins us next on "morning joe."
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great...is this why you asked me to coffee? well yeah... but also to catch-up. what's in your wallet?
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about a dozen companies and bank accounts and cypress that he was
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using this net bowork, bloodstr if you will. specifically to move money from the ukraine party of nations, a very pro-russia, pro-putin party. from a particular russian oligarch, who is also very close to putin. then when you saw the indictment, i saw the indictment. i said, okay. these are the same companies. this is the same network. this is the same bloodstream. >> we were just discussing all of this took place before he was made chairman of the campaign. as the indictment laid out yesterday. the white house said this all happened before, but you hired him and made him the chairman of your campaign. >> may be the reason you hired him. >> yeah, this all happened before he signed up to be chairman. that's the problem. that means this happened before he came to be your campaign
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chair. if it happened after wafrwards sure, you're not to blame. if he was doing it before, and you hired him, that is the issue. he was doing this before and you still hired him. he had that baggage. >> let's go to capitol hill right now. we have members of the armed services and judiciary committee. senator of connecticut. give us your reaction to the indictment yesterday. >> one of my colleagues joined me in asking for special counsel based on reports at the time about exactly what you have been hearing. follow the money. is the old adage and what reports public reports showed us from nbc and msnbc and variety of other outlets was this trail
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of potential law breaking. the george papadopoulos conviction was absolutely staggering in its detail and what it did not reveal that no doubt, he has told the special counsel. >> okay. senator. let's take papadopoulos, you're a former prosecutor from the state of connecticut. reading through the plea agreement or the outlines, what does that tell you in terms of what you feel a special prosecutor's office has has in this case, just off the papadopoulos deal. >> let's first take the deal itself. he had multiple exposure to many counts of 18 united states code. lying to the fbi. it was reduced to one count. each account would have been five or six years. this deal shows the special
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counsel is those results are illustrated in the document in the depth and detail, thebrebre about what is detailed. the thousand documents and other conversation s dirt on hillary clinton specifically. that reference. what it revealed is there is a lot more we can expect other than indictments. it's the beginning. the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. >> given that we will have you back as this conversation continues. senator richard blumenthal, thank you. >> senator, thank you so much for being with us today. richard, regarding paul manafort. what else may be coming? are there eother shhere other s drop. >> they talked about money moved from accounts to buy things in the united states.
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that's why they were trying to prove this trail of tax fraud and money laundering. we've looked at this network, there's a lot of money. we've written about a $60 million that has that moved from ogly garch to manafort in the form of loans. that wasn't specifically mentioned in this indictment. maybe it was the indictment only included the information they thought they needed to make a case for money laundering. there could have been a statute of limitations issued. you have a certain limit in which you can talk about this. i wouldn't be surprised if there are more charges coming and if we're talking about more money. >> well, richard, we love to have you back. especially because manafort is not the only trump official connectsed to banks in cypress. thank you so much. still ahead, it was the first
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guilty plea in robert mueller's's russian probe. talking about the role george papadopoulos and what the developments may mean for president trump himself. morning joe will be right back. if. dad: molly! trash! ( ♪ ) whoo! ( ♪ ) mom: hey, molly? it's time to go! (bell ringing) class, let's turn to page 136, recessive traits skip generations. who would like to read? ( ♪ ) molly: i reprogrammed the robots to do the inspection. it's running much faster now.
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it's 80% smaller but just as effective. which means, i'll run you off the court. hugs and kisses, mom. osteo bi-flex ease. made to move. there's no hesitation. one of the great memories of all time, there was no hesitation. >> i'm not sure the president recalls specific details of the meeting. again, it was a brief meeting that took place quite some time ago. >> interesting the president remembers his conversation with the war widow like it was yesterday, but things get a little more hazy when trying to recall his meeting with a former adviser who communicated with the russians about getting dirt on hillary clinton. >> he was one of his top advisers. that's what i don't understand. >> you talk to the "washington post," we all remember that. it was probably the first time a presidential candidate and
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editorial interview talked about his hands as much as donald trump talked about the size of his hands. when they asked his foreign policy advisers. boom. called him an excellent guy. talking about george papadopoulos. in this case, called him an excellent guy. look at the photographs and show him sitting in high level national security meetings with donald trump. >> do we have that photograph. i have to tell you, you know, it's sort of these sort of things to see who's in power and not in power. you have the attorney general on one side. who is going to be president. right in the middle, boom. the man of the moment. >> there he is. >> right there. >> that is the seat. >> that's the big story of the day. good morning, everyone. it's tuesday, october 31. happy halloween. a scary day for a lot of people.
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so scary. with us we have veteran columnist and editor -- >> i'm frightened to death now. >> freaked out. and nbc news national security analyst and former chief of staff of the cia and department of defense, bash. and in washington -- bill. good to have you all. >> i do want to start with this, though. it's really interesting, we've been hearing from critics of the special counsel from robert mueller that they're leakers. they leak. and then you get the first indictments out and trump and everybody else. oh, this has nothing to do with the campaign. and then, boom. then we get the other shoe drops. and my gosh, you sit there going oh, they arrested him, what, when? and they've held it for this long shows bob mueller runs an
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extraordinarily tight show. >> he does. and manafort and gates had gotten target letters and since the news of the sealed indictments got out on friday, nerve washington was wondering who it might be. manafort was on everybody's guess list. when the news hit 90 minutes later that george papadopoulos had been charged and pled guilty and therefore was convicted of a crime lying to the feds, that showed that bob mueller had not only one scalp, but he actually now had a major cooperating witness. >> we'll get to the manafort news in a moment. perhaps the most surprising development yesterday was the third man charged. one who has admitted to crimes and is cooperating with the government's investigation. george papadopoulos admitted to lying to fbi, itself investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election. yesterday's revelation shows he
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was arrested more than three months ago on july 27 and pled guilty on october 5. a court filing says that papadopoulos told the fbi that he had communicated with an overseas professor whom he understood to have substantial ties to russian government officials before he became a foreign policy adviser to the trump campaign. that papadopoulos acknowledged that the professor had told him about things possessing, quote, dirt on then candidate hillary clinton in the form of thousands of e-mails all before joining the campaign. in truth, papadopoulos learned he would be an adviser to the campaign in early march of 2016. and met the professor later. due to his status with the campaign. the filing says the professor told papadopoulos about the thousands of e-mails on or about april 26, 2016 after he had been a foreign policy adviser to the
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campaign for a whole month. to review the timeline, that is a month after clinton campaign chairman john podesta's e-mails were hacked and nearly two months before the first dnc hack was made public and three months before president trump made this joke. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails missing. >> i don't think it was a joke, actually. i think he actually. >> what's the impact. you look at this and you look at everything that's happened. the release of the e-mails through wikileaks. the meeting with the russian lawyers in don juniors office. donald trump lying orchestrating the big lie about that meeting. where does this all fit in the
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overall narrative. >> it shows, joe, how aggressive russian intelligence was at not only engaging a propaganda during the campaign. a lot of information back from the intelligence communities assessment accomplished in january of this year about that propaganda. now we're learning much more about the agents. how they handled, spotted assessed and recruited agents. every time we say professor, he clearly was a russian operative. cutout. someone recruited by the russian intelligence services to handle a potential asset deep inside the trump campaign. >> the russians don't go after, volunteers. people with quote, limited roles in the campaign. it's just the way sanders described george papadopoulos yesterday. found a mark. someone that sits in national security meetings. they reached out to him. and he showed interest just as donald trump jr. did in that meeting of june of 2016. getting dirt from a russian entity about hillary clinton. plain and simple.
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>> there's so many marks here. it's like we don't hear of this happening with if chinese. we don't hear of this happening with other countries. >> and you had a candidate all the time who just loved russia. >> the first two people i think he listed as it would "washington post" in that editorial board meeting, carter page and this guy. both of them were connected with russia. you look at the national security adviser flynn. goes over to russia. sits next to putin. gets paid. this is another after another after another. >> yes, in a huge criminal case like this, whautz is goul
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the fact that july to october that there's no word of the indictment has been handed down. the plea has been made. so that is basically a special prosecutors both aggressive and incredibly tightly, you know, held information and the papadopoulos information has the one keyword that should fit with everybody in the white house and that keyword is guilty. >> heidi, your thoughts on this. i also should point out there's so much criticism. you had donald trump on the show so much during the campaign. actually, came on our show and questioned him repeatedly about russia and repeatedly now on tape there is this president then candidate just refusing even in the most extreme cases of telling him, putin murders reporters and him refusing, refusing to say anything bad about russia. that all now is available to everybody. was available to the american
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people when we were interviewing him. and showing this incredible disparity, difference in the way he would talk about some people versus others. putin always being in good category. somebody that he would protect, defend and russia being something that he just wouldn't touch. >> if you noticed yesterday, there was a tweet storm that fell silent on just the papadopoulos news came out. now, you have -- we are getting hotter on the question of collusion because now you have a second campaign official in addition to don junior who was actively -- it's documented a actively seeking to potentially collude with the russian. shopping the e-mails and had a receptive potential buyer here in the high level aides. i think in addition to what mike barnicle said about words that should chill the trump campaign and trump officials in those court papers.
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it said the name, proactive cooperate terror. it's been covered that he pled to a less serious charge and that is classic case of him cooperating now with officials and i think if we learn anything from the announcement yesterday, the fact this was kept under wraps for so long that papadopoulos has been working with them for months is that mueller knows way more than we know is that despite the president's complaining about leaks in the administration railing about leaks. this is actually being kept quite quiet and this is only the beginning of charges either for manafort and for additional people and we simply don't know where the top of the fish head is. >> and several people last night giving examples in the past how that terms with the witness has met in past court filing somebody that would even wear a
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wire. under control of the fbi. he's not only turned over all documents he has. they probably were already in the e-mails. he could have been wearing a wire. volunteers. . don junior, eric, ivanka, jarred. i don't think being a volunteer exonerates you from having responsibility. most of the trump campaign were volunteers. still ahead on morning joe.
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nbc justice correspondent pete williams joins us with a live report on the latest details in the russia probe. who might bob mueller target next. first, president trump famously told us he talks to himself about foreign policy. when he did finally name his advisers, one of them was a man now charged with lying to the fbi. we'll show you more of what the future president said in march of 2016. first, bill karins with a check on the forecast today. the nice halloween, especially after we had a huge windstorm. at one point, million people without power. that number dipped significantly down. 100,000, 200,000. windstorm in northern canada. dragged down from very cold halloween air. 16 right now in fargo. only 15 in rapid city. of course the cold air over the warm great lakes caused snow and rain showers. numerous areas. umbrella weather, especially
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around the buffalo area southward: so the other story if you're going to be out late today, east texas, houston area. dallas even included. you koumtd have showers 6:00 p.m. not going to be a complete washout. showers and storms. all the way back to dallas. and then late tonight to tomorrow. bring this rain mess into areas of louisiana. east texas. you' you have to go to some beautiful areas like salem mass. georgia also goes to florida at 72. dracula, close enough. you're watching "morning joe" have a great halloween. we'll be right back.
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we brewed the love, right guys? accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? i'm tom steyer, and like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet today people in congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger who's mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. and they do nothing. join us and tell your member of congress
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welcome back to morning joe. digging deeper into the guilty plea of george papadopoulos who admitted to lying to the fbi. statement of defense filed in court includes allegations of papadopoulos making numerous contacts with senior trump campaign officials about facilitating meetings with you russians and getting encouraging feed back. it said in april the overseas professor introduced papadopoulos to an individual in moscow with connections to the russian ministry of foreign affairs. mfa for short. filing lists multiple communications by papadopoulos in attempts to arrange a meeting between the campaign with the russian government. and alleges that after several weeks of further communications regarding off the record meeting with officials on or about august 15, 2016 an unnamed official described as campaign
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supervisor told papadopoulos i would encourage you and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign encourage you to make the trip to russia, if it is feasible. interesting. present ed in the trump campaig with the opportunity to get dirt from a political opponent. they downton't run from it. they get thrilled from it. another company might say i don't want to go anywhere near this. i don't want to touch it. i know what the imply occasion would be.
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sara sanders was asked about this at the white house yesterday. down playing as we said papadopoulos's position within the campaign. here's what she said. >> can you explain the george papadopoulos role with the campaign was. >> it was exfreedomly limited. vog te volunteer position. no activity was done in official capacity on behalf of the campaign in that regard. very limited. >> maybe he was bringing indict coke or coffee. maybe he -- >> no, he was at the table. >> i don't think donald trump ever even mentioned this fguy's name as having to do anything with the campaign, right? >> well, papadopoulos is one of the first officials he named as
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a foreign policy adviser. >> what? >> boom. george papadopoulos, he's an oil energy consultant. excellent guy. >> trick-or-treat. >> i want to say something about collusion. reminding everyone how amazing the timeline is now based on revelations from yesterday. we know the trump campaign knew about the existence of these e-mails for three months until they were dumped and when were they dumped? timing wise, they were dumped within hours of the access hollywood tape about donald trump. so just let that sink in a little bit about terms of potential for coordination there. in terms of the white house
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distancing himself from papadopoulos. wanting to make him into campaign volunteer. we have the evidence he was corresponding with high level. being encouraged by high level officials. he was reporting to jeff sessions who by the way, later also lied about his own contacts with the russians. i think it also puts don junior e-mail in light ahead of his meeting with the russians where he was told this information is part of the campaign to help your father, and, again, there was no questions there. what campaign? coming up on morning joe, four weeks ago, facebook said 10 million users saw russia linked ads on their news feeds before and after the election. now, we're learning that number was much, much higher. we'll talk about the effort to influence the 2016 campaign. >> is 126 million more than 10 million. >> greater than.
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accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching
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and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? i'm tom steyer, and like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet today people in congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger who's mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. and they do nothing. join us and tell your member of congress that they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what's political and start doing what's right. our country depends on it.
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. facebook now says an estimated 126 million people received russian backed content on the website during the 2016 election. that's roughly one-third of the nation's population. the revelation was made in prepared testimony by facebook's general counsel. following the stretch ahead of the hearing. facebook says some 29 million americans directly received material from 80,000 posts by 120 fake russian backed pages. alarming new data from twitter was revealed as well. two sources told nbc news the company has found almost 37,000 automated accounts linked to russia that generated election related material that resulted in nearly 1.5 million tweets that could have appeared in the timelines of some 288 million users. >> so mike, you got possibly 288
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million. almost 300 million impressions on twitter from russian accounts. and you have facebook posts seen by 126 million americans. all to influence a kpcampaign tt was wonhe barest of march gins. number that fit in a football stadium were the size of the victory. .06% of 126 million. you add 288 million. and maybe that's.01 or .02%. >> we don't know if any of this resulted in people voting for donald trump over hillary clinton and what markets they may have voted or not voted for or against someone. we do flow the amazing reach and influence of people who get
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their news from facebook or twitter. largely facebook more than twitter. it's incredible. the reach and depth of that impact. >> missing from the comments we heard out of the white house including from sarah sanders, any signal or sign of outrage about the fact that russia did what it did in this election. you can separate out and say, russia tried to get into our democracy and alter the results of the election and i had nothing to do with it. those can be two thoughts that you have in your head. that i didn't collude, but russia did attempt to do it. donald trump as we at this table all know he can't put himself out and admit that perhaps his election was in some way ill legitimate because it was influenced by the russians. everybody including the white house should be outraged by the stories we're seeing not good math, but you add 188 or 288 million impressions on twitter. you add 126 million on
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impressions on facebook. that adds up to a lot of people. more impressions than people in the united states of america 67. kind of hard for the trump campaign or anybody, facebook, twitter, to not say that had an impact in the election in some way. and it did. it obviously did. can't quantity that. maybe some professor somewhere could come up with a formula. we'll never know for sure. that tipped the election to donald trump, but clearly to say that it had no impact is ridiculous. as far as there being 37,000 russian fake twitter accounts. i could have told you that. they're all in my notifications screaming at me. what an extraordinary day yesterday though with these indictments. i'll tell you, you know, you guys covered most of it.
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one thing i think ought to scare the white house is the papadopoulos was arrested in july and nobody new. nobody knew anything. it was not a leak, there was not a hint. it's not just the idea that between july and october he was wearing a wire. it's a question of who else has mueller arrested. who else has mueller turned. who else might be wearing a wire. that's something that everybody connected with the campaign and everybody with the white house has to worry about now. coming up on morning joe. bob mueller's choreographed 1-2 punch sends a signal to every trump official. cooperate and get a good deal or resist and get hammered. former justice department spokesman joints us next on morning joe.
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another guy indicted was jo former aide papadopoulos. turns out he tried to set up a meeting. a lot of newscasters were having trouble with the name papadopoulos. >> the trump campaign and through tell us more about the case against george papadopoulos, i should say. >> i think mr. should be put behind bars. >> now i'm not going to be able to say it. i've been good all morning. paul manafort's attorney, kevin downing yesterday began his response to his client's indictment. this way. >> i think you all saw it today. president trump donald trump is correct.
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there is no evidence that mr. manafort or the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> oh, okay. show over. oh, alex wants me to continue. nearly 24 hours of silence on twitter, president trump agrees. the fake news is working overtime as paul manafort's lawyer said, there was no conclusion. and events mentioned long before he came to the campaign. few people knew the young, low level volunteer named george who has already proven to be a liar. check the demes. i hope people will start to focus on massive tax cuts for business, and the middle class in addition to democratic corruption. joins us from washington, pete williams. where do you think the investigation goes from here and what could foreign policy adviser george papadopoulos
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offer to investigate. number one, anyone who thinks they know where the investigation is going, you should ask them where were they in predicting the charges and the guilty plea with gorge papadopoulos. nobody saw that coming. clearly what mueller is trying to do here i think yesterday was to make a point putting the two document s o documents out. grand jury on friday. under seal. the guilty plea that george papadopoulos. october 5. why put it out yesterday. one reason why may have been to make a point here. george papadopoulos cooperated with investigators and is apparently going to get a good deal. he's charged with lying twice to the fbi, but in the sentencing memorandum that companied the guilty plea.
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the government says the sentence ought to be between 0-6 months. several prosecutors i talked to said that is code for the government thinks he should just get probation. we know he's been cooperating for two reasons. one is that's a signal the government is looking for a lenient sentence, but secondly the court documents say that after he was arrested on july 27 arriving in dallas airport on an overseas flight. talked to mueller's investigates repeatedly and answering questions. we know he's cooperating. trying to work his way through t the campaign staff and try to go higher and higher. i do want to point out. two russian contacts they had that they had dirt on the hillary clinton campaign. there was nothing in the court
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documents indicated he told people in the campaign about that. i'm sure you'll follow up on did he tell anybody that and what are they going to do. joining us now, former special counsel at the department of defense. ryan goodman. former dod official and former executive director of grand talent commission now senior fellow at the atlantic counsel, and former justice department spokesperson now an nbc msnbc justice and security analyst matt ymiller. let's start with you. everything we've seen in the past 24 hours, what stands out to you. what do you think could most probably develop into more? >> well, as pete williams just said, he's absolutely right. there was no reason that mueller had to unseal this plea agreement by george papadopoulos yesterday. i think he was trying to send a message to all the potential
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subjects of this investigation, all the potential witnesses. that there are really two paths available to you. come and cooperate as papadopoulos eventually did after initially lying to the fbi. you'll get favorable treatment. he may end up with just probation or you cannot cooperate. you can lie, resist and stone wall and i'm going to throw the absolute book at you. he did that pretty deliberately. if you look at the plea agreement, pete just pointed out, he drops this little nugget of information about papadopoulos being offered dirt on clinton and e-mails and doesn't say anything more about that. i think he's sending a clear message to all the other people on the trump campaign and in the white house because remember it's not just activities on the campaign that are under investigation. it's trump's conduct potentially obstructing justice in the white house. he's sending the message to all of them i know much more about what happened than you think i do. when i come knocking on your door,honest.
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better be truthful. you're not just going to be a subject of the investigation. you're going to be a target. you're going to end up locked up yourself. >> the argument we heard from the white house yesterday and hearing again from president trump in regards to manafort, talking here in the indictment yesterday about activity that took place before the campaign. that's certainly not the end here for paul manafort. we have reporting nbc news that these e-mails from papadopoulos that were sent to an adviser, manager in the campaign, perhaps were paul manafort, someone in the campaign saying pursue the meeting. we're not going to send donald trump. you should pursue a meeting with the russians. what's the next step for paul manafort here. >> it's pretty significant. in fact "the washington post" yesterday also revealed that there had been alerted to the e-mails in august. so there's a very tantalizing footnote. it's another nugget which is, in fact, the e-mail in which one high ranking campaign official now identified as paul manafort e-mails another campaign official now identified as rick
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gates to say send in a low level official from the campaign to meet with the russians because we don't want president trump or at the time candidate trump's fingers on this. that's manafort sending the e-mail to gates. there was something that identified manafort at the center of this. i think another piece that's also maybe hasn't been given enough attention is how high up does this go. the photograph we keep seeing of this march 31, 2016 meeting where trump is kind of heading the meeting of course with the national security group. in the plea agreement, papadopoulos also said he debriefed everybody, including president trump in that meeting about all of his prior contact. i think there was a strong signal sent by mueller with what he dropped by releasing the plea agreement. >> doctor evelyn, let's talk about ukraine and what manafort was doing with ukraine, in crane before or during the campaign.
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he approached and said can i get in on the campaign. relatively quickly rose to be at the head of the campaign. before that he spent a decade working for the party of regions. a russia friendly party in you cane crane. ukraine until the latest uprising in 2014. prompted then the russian invasion of ukraine. he was on the side frankly speaking of the bad guise. that president shot at his people. after he shot at his people, he became more nervous about the deal we were trying to broker. fled to russia. still in hiding. he's still in russia, the former head of ukraine. >> it's incredible what we know. >> we know manafort was doing
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this work for the ukrainian government. also the question of what he was doing for the russian government and putin. he has these ties to the oligarch, one of the closest oligarchs to vladimir putin in russia today. he's a buy the who can't get a vie is a to come to the united states allegedly because he had some kind of ties to money laundering and organized crime. clearly that's another tie going back to russia. manafort through ukraine could go back to russia, but also through this guy derek who is in russia today. >> matt miller, you were in justice for quite a while. the lack of specificity about other names included. leading to the wonderment. is in all aimed at the fbi knocking on someone's door with the question you read the
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papadopoulos deal. did you ever speak to donald trump about the russians? >> i think that's exactly right, mike. look, i think they very intentionally put just enough information out in that information in that plea agreement so other subjects of the investigation, other people who worked on the trump campaign would know that mueller has entire visibility into what happened related to george papadopoulos and any meetings he went to. anybody he talked to. not so much they would know -- and could prepare for it. you have to put just out enough to scare people. that was a very intention mall move to on his part to send chills to ebb everyone in the or bit they don't know everything that mueller is looking at. they have to understand when they walk in an interview with the member of his team, if they say one thing that's not true. he's going to know that. the minute you do that, he has lemp leverage over you. he can threaten charges and the next thing you know you're
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wearing a wire walking around. >> i just want to underline something we talked about earlier. this truth that inside the trump campaign, when the opportunity to work with russia was presented by a russian, they jumped at the chance. >> they jumped. >> this was the second time. thrilled by it. donald trump was thrilled by the invitation to the meeting that had dirt on the dossier said manafort was the conduit from the russians and the united states. there's more. we should go back and look at the dossier. the quid pro quo was that manafort was going to help get in there. russians were going to help
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trump and in exchanges, one thing they were going to do was sideline the ukraine issue, changing of the republican plank to say we're not giving ukraine little assistance. ryan goodman, what are the possible realistic nondramatic next steps? and in the dramatic realm, what's the possibility there were other people wearing wires? >> so i'm not sure there are nondramatic steps over the horizontal. i think there are very high possibilities that other people have turned. you flip them and mover up. also notable papadopoulos is pleading to less serious offenses. question, what were the bigger offenses. another part that is fascinating and not going away soon is the fact that mueller comes out with financial crimes against
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manafort. that means that in a sense he's insulating him, his investigation against pardons. of trump can only pardon federal crimes. if he lied in the income tax to federal government, i presume he lied in the taxes to the new york state government. there's been reporting that schneiderman the attorney general in new york is cooperating with mueller. another elegant move on the part of mueller and it suggests that i think he's trying to pinch man ford rig manafort right now as one of the key elements of this. safe to say everybody in the white house might be remotely or connected with whatever it is we're talking about here is considering saving themselves first. >> i would think that they had a bad night of sleep last night. >> yes. ryan goodman on that happy note on this happy halloween. thank you very much. >> thanks guys. still ahead, back in 2015 our next guest said there was a
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98% chance that donald trump would win the white house. scott adams creator of the comic delburt is here with a new book pu . that's next on morning joe. ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪
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the coffee here is amazing. because the volcanic soil is amazing. so we give farmers like win more plants. to grow more delicious coffee. which helps provide for win's family. all, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee roasters. new polls out of iowa, post-debate poll, shows donald trump firmly in the lead and the new candidate surging, 22% of likely republican caucusgoers choose trump.
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the polls finds trump leading the field in iowa on who could best handle many of the top issues including the economy, immigration and terrorism. and when asked who was most likely to change the way washington works, trump stands head and shoulders above the others, 44%. i'm just reading the polls. back in august of 2015. donald trump was running strong in the polls. but the white house was a long way off still. that very same day, creator of dilbert, creator scott adams, predikted on his blog donald trump had a 98% chance of winning the presidency. in his new book "win bigley," persuasion in a world where facts don't matter," scott draws on his background as a hypnotist to deconstruct the tactics used by trump to persuade his way to the white house. you know there was a day in my life, a long time ago, where i would have thought that was ridiculous. i don't think it is now.
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so tell us what was going through your mind and why you believed. >> so, as you mentioned, i've got background in hypnosis and been studying persuasion in all its forms as part of what i do as a writer. so i've got decades of persuasion training. what i saw in him was a level of persuasion talent which combined with his oversized personality, i predicted early he was just going to rip a hole through the universe. >> yep. >> he didn't just win the election. >> yeah. >> he demolished two political parties as we know it. he changed everything we think about politics and what works and what doesn't. even the fact that he could ignore the fact checkers. >> yeah. >> and it didn't make any difference. i predicted that too early on that it just wouldn't matter. >> so i felt the same way. i felt like he defines success to the people who watched him on television, which happens to be millions of people, in america, many of them struggling with their own success. and wanting to be like him.
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and i've never seen somebody generate a crowd more quickly wherever he went, immediately 200 people, literally 200 people, would just gather around him and want him to sign things. and this is at a time when someone like jeb bush who was really a truly qualified candidate couldn't get 25 people in a room. >> let me read a little list of his nicknames, which is an example of how he does things a little bit wrong, which is what makes you unable to look away. >> right. >> it's the wrongness which is actually a technique. so this is an intentional -- a bit of wrongness. it's in this correct band of not too wrong. so here's just some of his nicknames. just the adjective part. wacky crooked, low energy, goofy, rocket man. he's got the entire seven dwarfs there. you say, these are not words you use in politics. they're just a little bit wrong. they're no so wrong you get impeached.
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they're just wrong enough. that too speaks to technique. >> one of the incredible persuasions that he pulled off to go to your theme of persuasion was to convince a large swath of america that was hungry for something that he was a populist, that he was, in fact, one of them, that he was working class. of course a guy who lives in a penthouse that's gilded and all the other -- all the other jazz he has. was it the aspiration, that he had achieved the american dream, he would fight for those people as well? >> a part of that. you also look at his language, the way he speaks. he speaks in the common language. and sometimes it even gets him in trouble. people said, hey, you're speaking like a sixth grader or something. but that too is solid gold persuasion technique. >> is that like when he was -- when he was on our show and we asked him again and again about russia and about putin and he would say the most -- it appears insane thing, and you think, okay, we're sharing with our viewers what we got here.
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and yet many voted for him. >> well, he's entertaining. you can't look away. and if he reinforces his message, reputation is important, keeping it simple. >> in terms of your predictive ability, one of the things you identified in the book, persuasion tip tools, is the simplicity of many of his answers. the simplicity of many of the things he says. and they seem to be much more credible to a lot of people, clearly, than more extended explanations. >> yes, try to remember what hillary clinton was promoting. she was really smart. her policies probably all made sense. but they're hard to remember. they were sort of conceptual. he talks about things in physical senses quite often. the wall. jobs. i mean, quite often his policies come down to a word. that's as good as you can get, persuasionwise. >> it's incredible. >> and do you think this is unique to donald trump or could another candidate come along using some of his tactics but not having his fame or charisma,
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all the things that helped him? and achieve what he achieved? >> he has what i call an incredible talent stack. it includes persuasion. there's also something about his risk taking, just his ability to take -- >> brazen. >> the shame, the criticism. he's got reality tv experience. he's a good speaker. he's smart. he's funny. if you put all that together, that would be really hard to match. i suspect you won't see it again. >> and it is a world where facts don't matter. how has that happened? is it the internet? >> well, here's what you learn as a hypnotist. most people think, well, we're rationale people most of the time but 10% of the time we get a little wacky. the hypnotist learns that's opposite. we're irrational most of the time but we don't know it. we're rationalizing our choices. 50% of the people would vote for one of the candidates. it didn't matter who was running. it was a long game to persuade 2% of the people who could be moved and that was the only
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game. >> wow. the book is "win bigly," persuasion in a world where facts don't matter. it's out now. scott adam, thank you so much for being on the show. >> thank you so much. >> congratulations on the book. and that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika, hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning, we think facts do matter, distance and distract. the white house downplaying any connection the indicted former members of their team have to the president. >> today's announcement has nothing to do with the president. >> trump reportedly fuming over it with an administration already in gridlock. will these arrests stop the white house from getting anything done? >> it is very distracting to the president, while at the same time, trying to carry the weight of what being president of the united states means. >> the president prepares to announce his nominee for what many consider to be the second most powerful person in washington. the fed chair and the stock market is tum